


Carpet Fluff

by Cloud_Portagate



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloud_Portagate/pseuds/Cloud_Portagate
Summary: Because there is a dearth of Agnes/Oats fluff out there, I am adding some work to the available pool. A meeting between Agnes and Oats taking place sometime after Carpe Jugulum and before Unseen Academicals. No smut, some swear words.
Relationships: Agnes Nitt/Mightily Oats
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not have any right to play in Sir Terry’s wonderful Discworld, but I am doing so regardless.
> 
> Please note that, because of formatting issues, I have inserted numbers into the text where the footnotes should be. The text may be found at the end of the story. I'm sorry about this

Agnes Nitt, witch, was fed up. Perdita X Dream, Agnes’s invisible enemy, was merely irate. Agnes had let Perdita take over their body while she headed back to the cottage. No one tried to stop her (1), which was just as well. Agnes doubted that she’d even have been able to smile at someone trying to present her with a full roast dinner for six (2). _Hunh_ , Perdita sneered at her, in the privacy of their shared brain, _for you it wouldn’t even be a dinner for three_. Inside her body, Agnes scowled. She had been on a diet for three years, and it still didn’t seem to have had any effect (3). But Perdita acted as if she wasn’t making an effort. She walked her entire steading every week, which, in the vertical country of Lancre was no small effort. Agnes knew that her steading wasn’t as big as the others’, but it was still a lot of ground to cover. 

Agnes had inherited her steading, or territory, from Magrat Garlik, after Magrat had gone off to be Queen. It was the cottage of a research witch, and Agnes, despite having no initial inclination to add to the library (4) it contained, had found herself penning a few treatises on magic and music, the uses of liverwort, and the mating habits of phoenixes (5). But for all that, Agnes, like Magrat before her, was the maiden of Lancre, _in more ways than one_ , Perdita added, and that meant that the senior witches didn’t trust her with a larger territory. Of course they still expected her to know everyone in the kingdom (227 at the last (6) census), and be fully cognizant of all their problems, mental, physical and familial, and to be able to treat each and every one before it became a matter of complaint to their neighbors. Since complaining about the neighbors was the fifth most popular occupation for the long Ramtops winter evenings this meant that Agnes was permanently overworked and very grateful for the tea and cake her grateful visitees often gave to her. 

But today she had had enough. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she’d been up since last night delivering a baby (7), sorting out ‘a domestic incident’(8), attending a sick cow, treating Mr. Salsify’s hand after ‘a workplace accident’ involving a saw and an incensed goat, and listening to the Misses Trout go on about “when they were little”. Actually Agnes would have quite liked to listen, as the Misses Trout had been in the area all their lives and knew far more about Agnes’s patients than she did, and it might have been helpful, but Perdita had been making snide remarks, so all Agnes heard were the complaints about “children these days”, usually accompanied by nasty looks in her direction, indicating that “children” included uppity young things who thought they deserved The Pointy Hat. 

Perdita stamped up Agnes’s garden path, past the carefully tended vegetable patch, the chicken coop and the privy and stopped at the sight of a man about to knock on her door. Perdita took in a lungful of air for a good bellow, when Agnes stepped back into control. This young man did not deserve Perdita’s wrath. He turned at the sound of her approach, and smiled at the sight of her. No one smiled at Agnes these days (9), but this smile was just for her. And her smile back, with Perdita making retching noises behind her eyes, was just for him. “Come in,” she said, shyly, “I’ll put the kettle on.” Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exaulteth-Om Oats beamed. 

***  
Agnes knew she was the Maiden, and probably always would be. Sometimes she speculated about that, but, mostly, she accepted that hers was a life of professional maidenhood. Perdita hadn’t. But, if Perdita were to be interested in someone, it would be someone cool and mysterious, like André the secret pianist, or Vlad the badly spelled vampire. Agnes, though, found Mightily Oats to be sensible, in a religious way, and an excellent antidote to witchcraft. It was friendship, rather than love, but, Agnes told herself firmly, it would last all the better (10) because of that. 

He had brought her a present. 

“It’s not really- um- very well polished, but- um- I thought it might- um- be useful for- um- for the witching.”

Agnes stared at the glimmering surface of the stone in her hands. She’d seen obsidian before, when she’d been to Ankh Morpork. But it had never glimmered like **this**. “Thank you,” she said, meaning every word, “I don’t know what I’ll use it for, but it certainly looks useful.” 

The kettle whistled. 

She made tea. 

They sat in silence while the tea brewed. 

Finally, after pouring the tea into the two most matching cups in the cottage, she said “where did you find it? I’ve never seen obsidian so…” Agnes didn’t have a word for ‘opalescent’, so she waved her hands around to try to describe the stone’s appearance. 

“Ah, well, you see, I met a very interesting young man on my last journey. Of course I couldn’t take him with me, but I left him with a friend in Überwald, and went to where he could remember coming from. It’s a phenomenal place you know. All the magic from the Evil Empire seeps into the ground, you see, and this place must have been the site of some big battle, where lots of magic was used, and it’s made everything a bit- um- strange.”

“So this is- strange obsidian?” Agnes asked. Perdita noted _almost no ums, he’s more confident._ Then, as if she couldn’t stand letting something so like a compliment pass her immaterial lips she added, _when he’s not around you, that is._

_He is around me, you stupid cow, that’s how you’re able to listen. Now for once just shut up._ Agnes replied, heatedly, willing herself not to blush. She’d got better at talking silently to Perdita, but she still reacted to the things that were said. 

“I suppose so. Do you know anything about- um- land magic?” He had tried to make it sound casual, but the um gave away his interest. 

“Granny’s been teaching me a bit,” Agnes conceded. “You might try her.”

“I- um- doubt-um Mistress Weatherwax would- um- want to see- um- me.” He stammered.

“Because of you helping her over the mountain to sort out the Magpies all those years ago?” Agnes asked. She was the only one in Lancre who spoke of what Mightily Oats had done to help Granny. Everyone else spoke of how much patience Granny had shown allowing Mr. Oats to follow her around all night. 

“That’s right.”

“Well, I can ask her, I suppose, but it’ll be like getting water from a stone.” She waited.

“According to the Book of Om the Prophet Cena…” Oats’s voice trailed off, “you don’t actually want to know that, do you?” 

Agnes smiled wearily, “I only meant that getting information out of Granny can be hard”. 

“Yes, it can, can’t it?” Oats replied. Then his eyes narrowed slightly in concern, “you seem very tired. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Oh no.” Agnes lied, “it’s just that being a village witch sometimes feels hard. But your work must be much harder. Can you tell me about it? What was this man you found?”

“Nutt? He’s a child really. I had to leave him with a lady who could raise him. Pastor Crischin isn’t very paternal, you see. I don’t know how he ended up on his own so far from the rest of his people, though.”

“Are you planning to take him back to his people?” Agnes inquired. She knew that people had Views about this. Perdita did. Perdita believed that people should be raised by their own kind, but she cynically separated ‘intelligent people’ and ‘stupid people’ into their own categories. Agnes knew how cruel people could be to their own kind, and would rather people were raised than brought up. 

Oats paused, as if sensing the internal argument. “I think Nutt will be better where he is. Bonk (11) will be good for him. He will have a chance to meet people at last”.

“He hasn’t met people?” Agnes asked, surprised. In her head Perdita added _where was he? Can we go there?_

“Not nice ones,” Oats admitted. 

“There aren’t many of those anywhere,” Perdita and Agnes supplied together. 

“Oh, do you not think so?” Oat’s voice was mild. And suddenly Perdita was furious again, and Agnes let her have control while she curled up inside her own head and hid. 

“No, I don’t. They’re ungrateful, small minded, petty, stupid idiots. They haven’t got the sense they were born with, and when you try to tell them things they say they understand and then as soon as your back is turned they go and do the same damn things they’ve always done!”

“Agnes!” Oats said, shocked by the ‘damn’, “this isn’t like you.”

“Agnes is too much of a doormat to come out and say it. I thought being bitten by a vampire would be good for her, but she’s just as much of a wet rag as ever. She lets them get away with it. She lets them walk all over her. She’s just a lump. But I hate them. I hate their stupidity, and their… their… lumpishness!” Perdita ended more cross that she couldn’t find the right word, a feeling not helped by 

Agnes supplying stolidity in their shared brain. Perdita wasn’t in the mood to speak to Agnes. Or even listen. 

“Sit down, Ag- er-miss,” said Oats gently, “and tell me what in particular you mean. It’s no good spouting off in general.” Agnes tried to get Perdita to calm down and talk to him. She knew he was talking sense, but Perdita hadn’t finished.

“My name’s Perdita” she shouted at Oats, striding up and down. Agnes noticed that, in her desire to flounce and rage Perdita had wrinkled the rag rug that Agnes’s mother had given her. She directed Perdita’s steps to the rug, and tried not to hit her head on the hearth as they came down. 

Agnes’s elbows felt bruised when she stood up, but at least it was **her** doing the standing. Perdita harrumphed in her head. “Oh, ow” she complained. Oats helped her back to her feet, but looked worried. “I’m Agnes again,” she told him as she sat down. Oats poured out more tea and the two of them sat in silence again. 

Agnes thought she had better explain. _And you’ll apologize_ Perdita growled at her. “Perdita is…” she trailed off, then tried again. “I don’t normally give her control, but it’s been a very trying day and she just – breaks out when we’re emotional.”

“We?” Oats asked, looking intrigued behind his tea cup. 

“Me and Perdita. See- you know when children are little they have invisible friends?”

“Oh yes. As I recall I used to get into a lot of trouble with mine.”

“Well, mine grew up, and is called Perdita. She’s-,” Agnes paused. When she’d tried explaining this to Nanny it hadn’t gone well, but Oats, well, he was- he was more like her. 

Agnes could feel herself blushing. At least it was starting near her stomach. She might have time to finish her explanation before she had to hide in mortification over her own embarrassment. “She’s the part that wants to break the rules, and be rude, and say all the things that you can’t say to people. Only, well, I’m a witch,” now the blush received reinforcements as it came streaming up over her neckline and galloped up towards the chin, “so she’s sort of- become a person.” Agnes was sure that her hair was about to ignite with the blush radiating from her cheeks. 

She risked a glance at Oats. He was sitting looking at her as though she was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. She saw his lips move, but the words were too quiet to hear. 

“Pardon?”

“I used to call them the good Oats and the bad Oats. They used to argue about which one was which (12).”

“Used to?” Agnes and Perdita asked together.

“I- yes. After the vampires I- well, we- they- found something we could agree on. So that’s what I’m doing. I don’t particularly want to go back to the other way.”

“You did seem happier after all that happened. I thought it was just that you weren’t about to die.”

“Oh, no. It’s because I was about to die, you see. That’s when I- they- we- started agreeing. Because I’d rather not die, you see. Either of me.”

“Yes,” Agnes whispered. She thought about that night, about the bite on her neck, and the children. She and Perdita had been most in agreement when they were angry. Perhaps that was happening now. 

“Is that why you went to Uberwald, then? To stay in danger of death?”

“No, no. Most of the time I have Forgiveness for the darkness and when there’s light, people are always glad to see me. I assure you it’s not that dangerous.”

Agnes glanced at the axe leaned demurely against the wall. Forgiveness, she thought, that was what it brought. She’d thought before that it meant that he forgave, but perhaps it represented when he had been forgiven by himself. 

_Don’t be stupid!_ Perdita shouted at her, _he’s telling you something important!_

Agnes concentrated. “It sounds like you need to find something you both agree on.” Agnes gave him a weak smile, which he returned, equally feebly. He raised his tea cup and indicated by it that Agnes and Perdita could have a little chat without him. 

What do we agree on? Agnes thought

_That these people are too stupid to be allowed_ Perdita supplied at once

No, they’re not. They need help, and they’ve got me

_So let’s go back to Ankh Morpork and sing and then they can get someone in who can help them_

I hate you

_No you don’t. You were thinking it too. You want to go somewhere more interesting in your life than Creel Springs_

Yes, but, you know how they are. They get into enough trouble with me, so what would they do without? There’s no way they’d cope with Nanny and Granny

_That’s because the old baggages won’t cosset them like you do. They’d tell them to stuff themselves and then go on home like the old crows they are._

I don’t cosset

_They don’t deserve your patience_

They are my patients!

_Ha! That’s just diversion, that is. You’re trying to change the subject._

How do you know about that?

_What you know I know, you know that. And you read that book. The one Vlad’s uncle sent you_

It was a present!

_Hunh!_

Agnes notices that Oats was talking again, so she shushed Perdita to listen. “Of course it’s down to you, but it seems to me that you might be satisfied staying a witch. You did say you were both finding it trying.”

_He should try being nice to people all day_

You could do with trying it, too

_You could do with shouting a bit more_

That wouldn’t be nice

_That’s what I mean!_ Perdita’s inner voice was so loud Agnes heard the echoes. 

“There might be a way forward,” she said, slowly, “but it might take a while.” 

Oats stopped pretending to drink his cold tea. “Om will light your path, I’m sure.”

***  
They cleared away the tea things and Agnes made a start on dinner, Oats chopping and stirring beside her. It was nice, Agnes reflected, to have someone to help around the place, not just someone to talk to. In fact Oats and Agnes didn’t say much beyond ‘have you seen the salt’ until they sat down to watch the pie bake. This time it was Oats who started the conversation. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Agnes admitted, “Perdita said all that needed to be said. There are stupid people, there are small minded people. There are people who wouldn’t know common sense if it hit them in the face.”

“Certainly not if it hit them hard enough.”

Agnes had to smile. It wasn’t a good joke but that wasn’t the point. It was a friend joke. It didn’t have to be funny. It just had to be comforting. “It’s one of the perils of being a witch,” she admitted, “you don’t see people at their best. I don’t know how Granny and Nanny do it.” _They don’t, that’s how_ said Perdita, _they get you to do it for them._

“Hmm,” Oats said beside her. It was a solid hum, B, she thought. Most people hummed in C. “I don’t know if it’s any help, but the Prophet Brutha said that we must try to see the best reason behind the worst behaviors.”

“He did?”

“Um- I don’t think I’m translating that very well. I mean- um- we must try to see past- um- the bad behavior and into um- the good behind it.” Agnes still looked blank. Perdita, for once, was silent. “Like, say- um- a mother is- um- angry with a shopkeeper, because- um- he’s short changed her.”

“Yes,” prompted Agnes.

“Well, she might be more angry than normal if she had a sick child at home, you see. So the motherhood concern is a good reason behind a bad behavior. You get it a lot with sisters. Well, all siblings, but especially sisters.”

“You had sisters?”

“Three” Oats shuddered

“I had four brothers”

“Had?”

“A witch doesn’t have a childhood. A witch is never anything less than an adult. Even to her own mother.” She sighed, “They’re proud to have a daughter who’s a witch, but they don’t treat me like I’m their daughter, or sister, or anything. I’m just- a witch.”

“That sounds lonely.”

“No more than you and Forgiveness.”

“Mmm.”

The pie turned gold, Agnes put it on the table while Oats found out plates and cutlery. They sat down. Oats said a small prayer over the food. Agnes felt bad that she had forgotten that he would, but he didn’t seem to mind her. 

“Is that how you cope then,” she asked, after another lengthy silence, “you see the good reasons for bad behavior?”

He looked up. “Most of the revenants I find don’t need a reason for bad behaviour.”

“I meant the hu- the people,” Agnes clarified, remembering too late that Uberwald was reputed to have major populations of non-humans.

“Oh. No. Mostly they seem remarkable. I don’t often run into someone truly bad. The way that they help each other, or the fierce protection. The way that one person is willing to make a sacrifice for the community, even if they aren’t on the best terms. It’s truly remarkable the way people can be so good.” He smiled at her. “Perhaps if you had another monster attack it would help you to see that.”

Agnes thought back, the lines, the children…and before, there had been all that business with the el- the Lords and Ladies. Agnes hadn’t been a real witch then, but she’d known enough of what was going on to get a feel for how everyone had suddenly worked together. And she thought of bees. Granny was teaching her about bees. In a state of rest bees would get in each other’s way and climb over each other and make threatening motions, but if the hive was in danger then the whole boiling lot would rise up like a- like a- like a thing that worked very well (13). She remembered how the mayor of Escrow had died to start his people’s freedom. She remembered how Shawn had done guard duty with his arm in a sling and a large poultice on the side of his head. She remembered how Tinker, Weaver, Carter, Tailor, Carpenter and Jason Ogg hadn’t been able to walk for a week after the business by the Dancers. And how they’d done it in spite of bad odds, and in spite of family arguments, and in spite, in Magrat’s case, of spikes. They had been remarkable then. 

They were quiet during the rest of the evening. Agnes gave Oats a glass of apple juice before he bedded down on the sofa cushions, assuring him that she had made it herself and that it wasn’t alcoholic. He patched a long tear in his shirt. She thought about bees. In its lifetime an individual bee didn’t produce very much. It was only when you added them all up that you got something worth spreading on bread. And if you tried to help a bee, if it was too tired, or too old, then, sometimes, it would sting you. Not because it was threatened, Granny said, but because it couldn’t do anything else. Mr. Brooks had said that you could revive tired bees by giving them a little honey mixed with water, but Granny said “what’s the good of that? Showing off to the poor thing that you’ve already got more than it could ever make in its life.” 

Was that witch-craft? Showing off to people what she could do, and where she’d been and how sophisticated and intelligent she was? But without the intelligence, and ability and understanding of the world you couldn’t be a witch. Most of witch-craft was knowing more than the non-witches, so that they went ooh when you did something. Humans lived outside the hives, and operated by different rules. They didn’t know, mostly, that bees didn’t individually make much honey. Did witches live outside the world?

Agnes couldn’t sleep that night, but when she woke up in the morning (14) there was only one phrase in her mind: they do the best they can. Yes, she thought. And the best they can do might not be much compared to me, but they deserve what I can give them. _And sometimes kindness is the cruelest thing you can do_ added Perdita. And then, Agnes told Perdita, I’ll need you. 

***  
Later that day Oats took Forgiveness to Jason Ogg to be sharpened, and Agnes walked over with him to Lancre town. She stopped in to see her mother, and rather surprised the older woman by talking about her childhood, and asking about her brothers. Then she picked up the last music sheets she’d left behind, and the old diary she’d been given when she was four. It was pink. It had a flower on it. Oats didn’t comment as they walked out of town together over the Lancre Bridge and looked into Lancre Gorge.

“I hope- um- I can- um- come to see you- um- soon?” Oats stammered. 

Agnes smiled. She touched his sleeve. Agnes still didn’t have a lot of experience with men who weren’t ill or trying to pull her hair. “Any time you’re passing, please do.”

“Well then, goodbye, Agnes. Om be with you.”

“Goodbye, Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exaulteth-Om.” 

“It’s shorter in Omnian.” He smiled sadly. He turned and walked the rest of the way across the bridge. 

“Mightily!” He turned at the sound of Agnes’s voice. She was panting a little as she jogged to catch him up. “What is it, in Omnian?”

“Hagufilathom,” he told her, seriously. He expected laughter. 

What he didn’t expect was for her to reach up, give him a brief kiss on the cheek and say, “Om be with you, Hagufilathom”. But that was what she did.

(1) Even people she’d known all her life didn’t really see Agnes anymore. They saw The Pointy Hat. No one who was a witch was ever, it seemed to Agnes, once a child. Even if she did still have a stuffed toy on her pillow.  
(2) The Ramtops, where Agnes lived, operated on a barter economy for the most part, and did away with actual money except in the direst of circumstances. Witches operated in a completely cashless economy as they never had to buy anything. But they did get given a lot: no one wanted a witch to feel they were ungrateful, even if they didn’t know what they were being grateful for.  
(3) This is often the case.  
(4) Library by witch standards, that is. It was one shelf of hand written notes chiefly about the aches and pains of the long dead former inhabitants of the cottage.  
(5) And she still wasn’t sure if it shouldn’t be phoenices.  
(6) And first  
(7) Citizen 237, although the census didn’t know it yet.  
(8) Mr. Weaver had broken Mrs. Thatcher’s wedding gift, and no one could remember who had given it to her in the first place. Neither did Agnes, since she’d been three at the time of the wedding, but she had told them who it was in a firm voice, and no one argued with a witch. Even if she had run around in her drawers and a vest and knocked over the pastry table at the event in question.  
(9) Although they did nod and touch their forelocks at The Pointy Hat  
(10) She would have said it would last longer, but five years in the same coven as Nanny Ogg had given her a more selective approach to her own vocabulary, even inside her own head.  
(11) He pronounced it Beyonk, and it took Agnes several weeks to find the place on the Mappe of U’bervallèd that Goodie Peascod had drawn and misspelled in one of the books.  
(12) Sadly, arguments over good and bad are all too prevalent in human society, and a great many wars have been fought to determine the outcome. War, after all, makes the answer simple: good always triumphs.  
(13) Agnes lived in a society where the main mechanisms were wheels and levers, one of which didn’t tend to work very well in the long run, and the other of which didn’t need oiling.  
(14) To the sound of the chickens getting in the way of Oats’s trip to the privy


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not have any right to play in Sir Terry’s wonderful Discworld, but I am doing so regardless.
> 
> Please note that, because of formatting issues, I have inserted numbers into the text where the footnotes should be. The text may be found at the end of the story. I'm sorry about this.
> 
> I'm still new to this HTML formatting thing, please let me know if I have made errors.

Agnes Nitt didn’t trust stories. It was a witch thing. Nevertheless, she had to admit that Prince Tomjon of Lancre was a suitable candidate for waking a princess with an overabundance of hair in a forest full of dwarves somewhere (1). He was certainly a handsome prince, although, at four years old the word ‘sweet’ was appropriate. _Try ‘adorable’_ Perdita insisted in their shared mind. But Agnes shied away from the word. There was no call to go around adoring people, especially royalty, just because they were personable, reasonably clever for their age, and easy on the eyes. But she’d been named the boy’s godmother, and that entitled her to a little affection for the self-propelled force for destruction.

Currently he was under stern instruction not to touch anything in the herb garden in front of Agnes’s cottage while she tended her hives at the back. This either meant that he was going to get the worst rash the kingdom had ever seen, along with projectile vomiting, diarrhea and a splitting headache to boot (2), or he was about to get stung by one or more of the bees. Agnes had given up trying to control him and had laid in more remedies against the ills of childhood (3) than anyone else in the kingdom except Nanny Ogg. Agnes reckoned that if Curiosity killed the cat, then Tomjon must be attracting something like the same supernatural attention, although Nanny assured her this was just a phase which he’d outgrow once he started to take an interest in girls. Agnes hoped it would happen soon. .

Agnes replaced the roof of the last hive, taking care not to squash any of the workers. The bees might not notice the reduction in their numbers, but she’d feel bad. She hadn’t ever tried to Borrow the mind of the Hive, but she and Perdita had come to an Understanding when she had learned the skill well enough to keep up with Granny, and a side effect of it all was that you treated all creatures with respect (4). That done she listened for crying and was slightly alarmed when she couldn’t hear any. Then she relaxed: she could hear running feet, and the muffled boing of toddler hitting water butt. Tomjon rebounded around the corner of her cottage and called out “Mother, come quick, there’s a man with a axe!” Agnes tried not to allow hope to rise. There were a lot of woodcutters around Lancre Forest and a thousand other uses for an axe besides. But Hope is an insidious enemy and has the rising power of helium. 

Sally Weaver was talking to the man. Agnes couldn’t see his face, but she recognized the clothes. She breathed out all at once, “Hagufilathom!”

Pastor Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exaulteth-Om Oats smiled back at her, “Agnes.”

“That’s a funny name.” Tomjon had come with Agnes and had addressed Oats with all the confidence of a four-year-old who, in Perdita’s opinion, ought to know the perils of Just Asking by now. Agnes’s left arm gave the boy a gentle cuff on the back of his head. Tomjon appeared unperturbed. “Ow. Well it is,” he insisted. 

Fifteen-year-old Sally (5) Weaver, Agnes’s first student, took Tomjon aside to show off her knowledge. “He’s from Forn Parts,” she told the child proudly. 

Tomjon stretched his world knowledge, “Ohulan!?” 

Oats patted the boy tentatively on his shoulder, “even more foreign than that. Where I come from, they don’t even respect witches.” 

Sally and Tomjon recoiled at the idea of a place so monumentally backwards. 

“But you like Mother, don’t you?” 

“Mother?” Oat’s asked, looking at Agnes with confusion, and a little trepidation. Agnes was touched that he thought she might have found someone. Perdita was scornful that he could possibly believe that. _Om is one thing, but **no-one** could believe you’d find someone._

“Let’s go in,” Agnes offered, trying to prevent death by blush. “Sally, take Tomjon home, will you?” Oats stood aside to allow the younger pair to pass and started up the path to Agnes’s back door. (6) 

Inside Agnes put the kettle on and cleared Tomjon’s toys into their box in the corner. Oats looked around as though seeking something but didn’t seem to find it. 

“So that’s Tomjon,” he said at last. “He’s grown a bit.” 

“Yes.” _Not enough_ added Perdita. 

Agnes remembered the last time she’d seen Pastor Oats. It had been four years ago, almost to the day. 

The screen of imagination developed wibbly lines before resolving. 

***  


The castle was filled with “all the ort mond” as Nanny called them. Granny just sniffed. She had a very good nose for sniffing at people. Agnes was reminded of Young Esme’s Naming, which had been interrupted by Vampyres. But, although they had been invited, it had been made clear that they were simply being invited for decency’s sake and it was not to be seen in any way as an invitation to invade the country, and that any funny business of that nature would be dealt with most sternly. So, the vampires were in town and on their best behavior. Lacrimosa was still spiteful, the Count was pleasantly courteous, apologizing again for the previous behavior of his nephew, and keeping a firm eye on his younger relatives, and Vlad… Well, Vlad was a disappointment. 

Perdita had been excited to see him again, but it seemed that Granny’s teaching had some merit. “What don’t live can’t learn” she’d said once (7), and it seemed to be true. Oh, Vlad was as charming as ever, but he was somehow… juvenile. It seemed silly to Agnes that anyone over 200 years old could be considered so… stupid. Perdita had dumped him; it had seemed only fair. He had looked so shocked that Agnes almost took pity on him. But she had other things on her mind. 

The royal party descended the stairs and Agnes and Oats met them at the thrones. Oats took the baby with considerably more confidence than he had taken Young Esme and pronounced his name to be Tomjon without any more hitch than a brief hesitation. The hesitation had caused looks of panic in the royal couple’s eyes, but Oats had winked at them, and they had all had a good laugh about it afterwards. Baby Tomjon Verence Of Lancre was Named. Agnes had spent the evening holding him, to give Magrat a break, and it had been then that the name had started. Goodmother Nitt. 

Goodmother Nitt had given way, in the intervening four years, to Mother Nitt. 

And then, two years later, Lancre had a problem. Three Mothers. No Maiden. No…Other One. Nanny, Magrat and Agnes. They had shuffled things around well enough initially, but things had never been quite right. No-one mentioned it, but Granny-no. 

Now, Nanny had adjusted her corsets, Agnes was teaching Sally and Magrat had officially retired, again. It worked, but if push came to shove, and the Power of Three was needed, Agnes wasn’t sure that they would hold up. 

The screen of the mind wibbled again as Agnes was abruptly reminded of the present. 

***  


Oats and Agnes made tea and small talk, until the shouting in Agnes’s head got too loud to ignore. “Where’ve you been?” she had to ask.

“I didn’t mean to be away so long. But one thing led to another. You know how it goes. And there was more trouble with the magic in the land. I was stuck in one valley for a year and a half. It was nearly as boring as the Seminary.” 

Well, that was alright then. “Did you sort it out?” 

“Oh yes, there was a collision of a couple of boulders, it made the whole area unstable for a while, but it cleared up in the end.”

“You make it sound like chicken pox.” 

“I suppose it was a bit. But- uh- I didn’t think boulders were involved in chicken pox.” Agnes smiled. 

“And the other two and a half years?” Perdita prompted. 

They made dinner while Oats talked. He had visited Nutt, who was making such progress with his education that it was frightening, he had been introduced to Diamond, King of Trolls and been privileged to learn some of the History Chant, he had been soundly berated in Ohulan by the Church of Om for missing his examination for promotion. He told her proudly that he had told the Deacon that his work in Uberwald was more important to him than any other congregation, and that he’d be happy to remain Quite Reverend for the rest of his life. The Deacon had given him the title Pastor and ordered him to report back in five years. Then he had come back up the mountains to Lancre. 

Agnes had to admit it was a good use of two and a half years. Perdita wished she had done half of that in the time.

Over dinner and a drink (9) Oats asked Agnes about her own time.

“Oh, the usual. Colds, sick goats, births, deaths. We had a plague of dogs about a year after you left, that was quite interesting. And teaching Sally, of course. That was after Granny-” she stopped. And started again. “Oh, and we had a minor Darkness come through a couple of years ago. It’s in one of the caves in the gnarly ground now. I go and talk to it from time to time.”

“Dogs? Darkness? Sally? **Granny?** ” Oats stammered.

“Yes, Granny-” _no_ Perdita insisted. Yes, Agnes thought back. It’s time. “Granny has… left us.”

“Where did she go? Ankh-Morpork?”

“No- I mean- she- she died.” There, it was said. Inside their mind Perdita flinched.

“Oh,” Oats didn’t look shocked. He looked as though he couldn’t think enough to be shocked. Agnes understood. She couldn’t quite comprehend the Granny shaped hole in their lives.

The eye of imagination went wibbly again, as Agnes thought about the old witch who had never really been an old woman.

***  


“There’s no point feeling sorry for me girl. Anyway, you ent. You’re sorry for yourself. A witch has no place being sorry for herself. Whatever happens happens, and a good witch copes with it when it does. A witch doesn’t mope. So, stop it. And make the tea.”

And later, when the tea was drunk.

“Just you remember, the land needs a witch. Nanny’ll look after the people, and Magrat- she’ll be alright. But the Land needs someone. You were here for that Dancers business: you know that. Just you see to it. You’ve got the mind for it. And let that Perditax out a bit more.”

Agnes had known the end was nigh, then. Granny was being complimentary. She really wanted Agnes to know what she had to do. Even so, she hadn’t expected the ripples of the formidable woman’s passing.

_No_

***  


There were no wibbly lines this time, Agnes snapped back to the present, thrown out of her own reminiscences by the force of Perdita’s denial.

It seemed Oats was having a similarly hard time with the idea. “Sally?” he asked, desperately changing the subject. “The girl in your garden? She told me her name was Chlamydia.”

“Her mother wanted to call her that, but Sally was easier to spell. So, her real name is Sally, but everyone calls her Cally.”

“Everyone except you.” Oats sounded almost proud.

“A witch has to be a little bit different.” It wasn’t vanity, it was simply a fact.

“Aren’t you- uh- worried about the different names?”

“No. Sally knows who she is. And, before you ask, yes, she knows about Perdita.”

“How is Perdita?”

“Bored,” Perdita answered, before Agnes could stop her. Perdita’s right hand covered her mouth, to try to stop the words coming out. “I want to see the places you’ve been. I want to do something big. There’s nothing but boring, petty people with boring, petty problems and boring, petty diseases. I don’t know how that Agnes doesn’t give them all a thick ear.”

“The plague she mentioned sounded pretty nasty.” Oats said infuriatingly mildly, in Perdita’s opinion. There’s nothing worse than someone being aggressively reasonable in the face of a perfectly good rant.

“Oh, dogs. They’re alright. Just a matter of making sure they don’t land on anyone and cleaning up the splashes. The worst part was the children who wanted to keep them. Magical dogs don’t last very long. They cried such a lot when the wretched things exploded.”

“Well, children do tend to get attached to animals.”

“Hunh.” _Very articulate,_ Agnes told her off. _Give me back my vocal cords!_ No, Perdita insisted. I’m not finished. “It’s just more pettiness. You’ve been talking to trolls and fighting rocks. I’ve been stuck listening to crying children and cleaning blood off the thatch.”

“People need someone to come crying to. What would happen if you weren’t here? Tomjon and Sally would be learning not to fear a man with an axe, would they? All the people with colds would be getting treatment, would they? Or would the kingdom be a bloodstained, coughing, wheezing, crying mess?”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Ag- Sorry. Perdita, sometimes you’ve got to do the boring things so that people trust you to do the big things. I can’t just walk into a town and be respected. But you can walk into any village in Lancre and people know your name and will abide by any decision you make. Well- they know Agnes’s name.” That brought her up short.

“Really? You know that do you?”

“I stopped in at Creel Springs on the way here. And Lancre town.”

“Oh.” Perdita was so disappointed that he hadn’t been so keen to see her that he’d ignored the other towns that Agnes was able to take back control. She lowered her right hand.

“I didn’t think of things like that.”

“Well, it’s true, Agnes.” He was the only one who could tell when they switched. Agnes flashed him another smile and stood up to collect the dinner plates. Oats took the kettle outside to fill it.

“And the darkness?” he asked when he returned.

“Sorry?”

“You mentioned a darkness in a cave that you talk to.”

“Oh, that. It’s only a minor darkness. The Dwarves have developed some new system of lighting, and the poor thing had no-where else to go, so we let it use the caves. It likes them and I enjoy going to talk to it.” Agnes shrugged dismissively, as she prepared the teapot.

“But what is it?”

“Oh. I thought you’d know. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. It’s a dwarf thing is it? They don’t like to talk to me. I’m too religious for them.” He gave her a sheepish look.

“Well- you know how the dwarves say they don’t have a religion?” Oats nodded, “Well, they have- sort of- spirits. Like- well- I’d call them gods- I suppose. But- little gods. Of Darkness. The Waiting Darkness, the Opening Darkness, the Sleeping Darkness, the Prowling Darkness. This one is the Expanding Darkness. It happens when candles burn down. But they’ve got some new lighting, so the light doesn’t go out in the same way. So, it’s got no-where to live anymore. It likes the gnarly ground, here, though. It can expand and contract with the caves.”

“So- uh- it’s a god- of a people who don’t have gods… I thought that wouldn’t work (10)?”

“No- it’s not quite a god. It doesn’t work like a god. It’s like an animal but made of- sort of- god-stuff.”

“God-stuff?”

“I’ll take you up there to see it tomorrow, and you can see what I mean, if you like. I need to take Sally up there sometime anyway.”

“I’d like that.” They lapsed into silence again. “Um- Agnes- um- about the trolls- I could- I mean- I have some of the History Chant written out. I could copy it for you. Or ask Diamond to send someone to teach it to you.”

“Thank you. Big Jim Beef has never mentioned it. I’d like to learn about trolls. Granny-” no “I’ve learned quite a bit about land magic, but trolls are difficult to talk to.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

This time the silence carried them all the way to sleep.

***  


Agnes Borrowed a raven to take a message to Magrat in the early morning light. Tomjon was to stay at home today. Agnes was busy. On the way back she stopped at the Weavers’s to wake Sally and get her to dress for a flight and a walk.

When she got back Perdita had inexpertly made breakfast and Oats was sharpening Forgiveness. Agnes took a few minutes to get used to the feeling of having fingers again before Perdita gave up the task of making a packed lunch with gratitude.

“I thought you’d have dropped that off with Jason Ogg,” she volunteered to Oats, as he gave a muffled ‘dang’.

“I would have but- well- it was busy in the forge and- well- I uh- I wanted to see you.” Agnes dropped her knife. She felt the blush start as she looked at Oats. He, too, looked embarrassed.

“Uh-” Agnes stammered. After a few moments which seemed to take a minute she tried again, “Hagufilathom.” They locked gazes. They were much too close. There was only one thing to be done. Agnes titled her head back to offer him her lips and saw him bow his head to do the same.

“I’m here! Oh-” The joyful cry came from the doorway and caused Agnes and Oats to separate as though magically repulsed. Sally had arrived.

The blush colouring her face Agnes turned away from Oats with a muttered ‘poot’, to collect her knife and continue to make sandwiches. “Good morning, Sally.”

“Mother Nitt!” Sally’s voice was all exasperated teenager. “It’s Chlamydia! How can I be a witch with a name like Sally?” Inside Agnes’s head Perdita sat up and sniggered. Oats made a noise which may, charitably, have been a cough.

“It doesn’t matter what your name is, Sally. What matters is whether you can harness power. What matters is that when you need to be a witch, you can be a Witch.” Agnes desperately hoped she had managed to get the words out in the right order, Perdita had been cackling far too loudly for her to hear herself speak.

“If it doesn’t matter, will you please call me Chlamydia?”

“If you can be a witch with a name like Sally, you can be a witch in whatever weather.” Agnes countered. Oats coughed. The two witches looked at him.

“Good morning, Chlamydia. How are you this morning?” It was a blatant attempt to change the subject, but it seemed to work.

“I’m very well thank you, Mr…”

“Oats. Pastor Mightily Oats.”

“That’s not what Mother Nitt called you yesterday,” Sally pointed out.

“Agnes knows me by my Omnian name. It’s shorter than in Morporkian, but people find Mightily easier to say.”

“Oh.” For the moment that seemed to be it. Agnes finished packing the lunch, gave it to Sally, and collected her broom.

“We need to stop in Lancre. Ha- Mightily has to drop his axe off at the forge. Then we’ll head up to the moor.”

“We’re going to the moor?”

“We’re going to the caves in the gnarly ground.” Sally’s eyes opened wide. Agnes had told her about the gnarly ground, when teaching her about how magic can affect geography, but Sally had never been there.

“Is he coming?” the girl asked, indicating Oats. “I thought gnarly ground was witch business?”

“Pastor Oats is, indeed, coming with us. He has experience of gnarly ground in Uberwald.”

Suddenly Sally’s demeanour changed. It was subtle but Agnes was looking for it. Grudging acceptance of a stranger, even if it was a stranger who might provide gossiping opportunities, had been replaced by awe. Someone who had come from somewhere so backwards they didn’t respect witches wasn’t very interesting. Someone who had been to Uberwald was fascinating.

***  


The trip to the gnarly ground had been interesting for more than one reason. Firstly, had been Sally’s reluctance. The bridge had been high, the thorns long, the bracken high. She hadn’t trusted Perdita, Agnes and Oats’ reassurances that the bridge was quite safe, and eventually Agnes had to tie her stocking over the girl’s eyes and lead her across that way. It was a curious experience. The bridge was trying to be both very rickety and very safe at the same time. Like much of the rest of the gnarly ground, looking at it was beginning to give Agnes a headache.

In fact, Sally’s natural witchcraft seemed to be letting her down up here. As Agnes had suspected, Sally was a witch who drew power from other people. In towns she was fine. Up here, with only the four of them, two of them sharing a body, her power was more limited. Agnes would have to teach her to represent the people, so that she could draw on that power wherever she went. Perdita would be the better teacher for that.

Secondly, had been the Darkness. It responded to Hagufilathom immediately, curling around him like a large and insubstantial cat. Agnes had never known it so friendly. The two had settled down to chat like they’d known each other for years. Sally was impressed, Agnes was curious. But in a way it made sense. Oats took light into dark places. That meant that he needed dark places in the same way that Sally needed people and Agnes needed ground. In the end several small pieces had broken off to be carried to other places. The Expanding Dark still felt comfortable here, but it was the Expanding Dark, it needed to spread out. So, one piece was heading under Agnes’s sink, one to the castle dungeons, and one with Oats back into Uberwald to find a place to settle there.

Finally, the ground up there had a lot to say to a witch with her ears open. It wasn’t anything special, but it was informative. And when the time came to leave the land did something she’d never seen it do. There was a shiver in the ground and a bump appeared, which formed a lump like a pimple. And like, a pimple, it appeared to have a pale peak. And when the ground settled back down there was a conical piece of quartz, polished smooth and, unlike most crystals Agnes had seen, crystal clear. It was a scrying stone. A stone of the Old School, when magic was more prevalent, and witches were more powerful. Agnes couldn’t guess at how long it had been buried in the soil of Lancre, waiting for a witch to find it. _A new witch_ Perdita insisted, _after all, maybe it came from the Witch at the door._

Maybe it had, at that.

(1) Agnes was a little hazy on her fairy tales. She hadn’t trusted fairies since finding out that they were blue, stole cows and swore with every second breath.  
(2) Witches were very protective of their herbs  
(3) Such as Falling Down Stairs, Jumping Over Ditches That Turned Out To Be Wider Than They Looked, Going Swimming In The Lancre River, My Friend Told Me To, She Did It, and the whole range of Justices: Just Asking, Just Looking, Just Having A Poke Around, Just Tasting, Just Talking, Just Listening, Just Testing and Just Thinking (Not itself an illness, but a condition which led to a considerable number of others, a bit like immunodeficiency).  
(4) Except fairies, who couldn’t be trusted, vampyres, who needed a dictionary, and goats.  
(5) Pronounced “Chlamydia”  
(6) It had been said that no-one used front doors in Lancre except brides and corpses. This had stopped after a particularly awkward funeral wherein the coffin had been forced to wait in the doorway for the two bearers to exit the cottage by the back door.  
(7) Agnes had hopefully developed her own variant: that “what doesn’t learn doesn’t live.” But had given way to Perdita’s cynicism after the second time that Cordelia Carpenter, running from Debendapility Carter (8), sprained her ankle leaping the same culvert in Mad Stoat.  
(8) Running from boys was a fairly standard courting tactic among Lancre’s teens. The idea was to run just fast enough to keep ahead of the boy, but then fall over behind a helpful hedge, tree or pile of stones. One not large enough to get in the way of any ‘assistance’ that might be offered, but certainly big enough to prevent witnesses to that same.  
(9) No alcohol. Oats may have given up a traditional life in the Church, but there were some injunctions that he couldn’t bypass.  
(10) The Gods of the Disc rely on the belief of their followers to sustain them like a celestial IV. In order to make sure that there are believers most of the Gods maintain a policy of “smite first, prevent questions afterwards”. In the case of some over-zealous Gods this has been a rather counterproductive policy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you can't tell, I haven't read the Shepherd's Crown because I, like Perdita, am having a hard time coming to terms with a Granny shaped hole in the Discworld. If I have some things wrong that are already canon, I'm sorry. One day, when I have let go of Granny, I shall finish my last unread Discworld book.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised Fluff. Then this happened. SorryNotSorry.

Mother Nitt awoke feeling old. She'd never felt truly old before. As was her wont these days she let her mind skim over the kingdom. Lancre was sleeping a contented midwinter sleep, resting before the spring planting. Something was upsetting the birds over Lancre gorge, but it might just be Mr. Ixolite. Agnes had never been good at human, or near human, minds. She reached for her walking stick, hooked one end around the open window, and began the process of starting the day. 

She hobbled, her joints stiff in the morning chill, to the kettle where she'd left it on the table, and then outside to the water butt, now frozen over in the depths of winter. Her breath puffed in the dawn air as she swung the kettle hard down to break the ice. 

She felt all the years of serving the people of the kingdom deep in her bones this morning as she lugged the kettle inside and began to lay and light the fire, taking care this morning to lay aside her walking stick out of the way of flames. As she worked Agnes caught sight of her hands- gnarled, weathered and wrinkled. Part of her, the part that had been Perdita, wrinkled her nose at the age. Another, which was still Agnes, thought of all those hands had seen. She had lived a full life, if in a narrow sphere, and she considered that, if she was old, then at least it wasn't a wasted life. 

The kettle on the fire at last Agnes struggled to her feet. She looked around the room that comprised a sitting room, dining room, law court, and apothecary. She had left her mark on the cottage, too. The extra shelf she had got Weaver the carpenter to put up for her to hold her books, and the rocks and books Hagufilathom had brought back from his travels. The rug on the floor her mother had made for the bedroom- Darren and Jason Ogg had lifted the bed to make room for it. The beehives from Gert Smith and the chicken coop that Thatcher, the approximate carpenter, had made for her. She had left her mark. Like her sister witches she had grown old and stamped a life in these walls that would be forgotten, yet would linger in strange places. 

Agnes had found solace, over the years, in the complaints of her forebears left forever in the books she had inherited. Soon, someone would inherit her books. What would they think of her? 

***  


She felt the vampire coming up the garden path and headed automatically for the side door to let them in. Vampires held no fear for her now. She paused as the kettle began to whistle and removed it carefully to a pad on the table before going to the front door. Vampires were, technically, dead, after all. They could use front doors with impunity. 

The vampire who stood there in the overcast morning light was not one Agnes had met before. She was tall and slim but looked comfortable in her body. She was well dressed, but, the Perdita of Agnes considered, hadn't made an effort to be well dressed. She had grown accustomed to dressing well. In her hands she held a haversack Agnes recognised. Agnes knew then that she not only knew who this vampire was, but why she had come. She stood aside to let Lady Margolotta von Uberwald in. To her surprise the lady entered without an invitation, and also without a surplus of disdain for the humble surroundings. 

"There've been some changes since my last visit," the lady remarked, removing her wide brimmed hat and travelling coat, draping them casually over one arm. 

"When was that?" Agnes asked, full of Perdita's proprietary pride, and then, with Agnes's usual hospitality, "would you like tea?" 

Lady Margolotta smiled, "I do not drink… tea. I last came here, oh, a hundred years ago or more. The witch at the time was Tracy Irwin, if I recall." 

Agnes nodded: it was a name she knew from the journals. "She never mentioned you." 

"One didn't, in those days. Now, of course, it's acceptable but then… alas, we were all monsters to be driven out with pitchforks." The slight smile had never left her face, giving Agnes the annoying feeling that her ladyship was laughing at her. "You, on the other hand, I have heard a great deal about. You have made an impression in Uberwald, as much as in Lancre, you know. You turned down immortality, fought the vampire's bite, led a mob, you care for a kingdom and treat trolls as real people. Oh yes," she forestalled Agnes's interruption, "there are many people in Uberwald who know of Agnes Nitt. And, of course, you had the love of one Mightily Oats, who was known throughout my country. He stood up to monsters, too. Faced them down and left human- no, left _humane_ creatures in their place.” 

“Faced.” Agnes didn’t make it a question and ignored her Ladyship to make herself tea. She could feel herself needing it. She knew Hagufilathom was gone but as long as she had something to do, like make tea, she could put off the realisation. 

“Faced. Yes. Stood, saw, helped, left...” Lady Margolotta sat down at the table opposite Agnes. “And he loved.” 

Agnes had seen a lot of people die over the years. But it had almost always been within view. She had held their hands and seen Death come for them. She had rarely come to terms with death at a distance. It was harder to understand. She had found herself going to call on Granny Weatherwax for years after her death, had planned to ask Biddy Skindle to watch the chickens, or talk to Jebediah Tinker about his daughter’s behaviour, all because she hadn’t been there when it happened. Death was coming for her, she knew, and soon. But she would be there, too, and could accept it just as easily. This was something she could not, yet, come to terms with. 

Lady Margolotta moved the tea things aside with one hand and laid the haversack on the table. 

“Mr. Nutt carries Forgiveness, now. I think he will want to see you, too, when he has time. To talk over his mentor.” 

“If I’m alive, he will be welcome.” Agnes eased herself into a chair and wrapped her hands around the mug of tea to fight off the cold. 

“Pastor Oats wanted you to have these, though,” Margolotta continued, as though Agnes hadn’t spoken. “Some he was planning to give you, I believe, before he died, others, well. They are an inheritance.” She pushed the haversack forward. Agnes ignored it. 

“What happened?” Perdita asked. 

“You truly wish to know?” Margolotta sounded intrigued. 

“No. But I need to,” Agnes admitted. 

Margolotta’s smile seemed to be ever so slightly more respectful with that admission. “He fell. Uberwald is a wild country. As I understand he was walking a cliff in the rain, and it gave way under him. Mr. Nutt was most determined to find him, but it was too late to do anything. Of course, if I had been there-”

“No,” Agnes interrupted. “You say your kind aren’t monsters, and maybe there’s truth in that, but he wouldn’t want it. We don’t, you see. Mortals. It’s a relief to _be_ mortal. To know that, one day, the fight will end. Because it _is_ a fight, for people like us. Fighting against cupidity, indolence, egoism, parochialism. And one day someone like Mr. Nutt, or like young Crimson, will pick up that fight, but we can lay it down. He wouldn’t want your immortality. Neither would I.” 

“You think that you cannot fight while immortal? That immortality itself would not be a boon in that battle?” 

“If it came without the cost, maybe. But nothing ever does. I’ve seen a lot of life, your Ladyship, and I’ve seen a lot of death. I’ve seen undead, too. And you have a battle to fight yourselves. You fight yourselves. That’s how you can say you’re not evil- because you spend your life- your immortality- fighting that. But we don’t fight for ourselves, people like Hagufilathom and I. We fight for other people. And that means that, one day, the fight should end.” 

“And you’ll have a nice quiet afterlife, I suppose, and bask in the glow of the good you have done?” 

“No. I’m not one for the quiet, even now. As for basking in good- My Lady, have you ever considered that those who do good for good’s sake are, in fact, the wickedest of us all? A witch’s job is as much about forcing other people to live a good life as it is about doing true good. We’re the wicked witches. We’re not _meant_ to be good. If I look back it won’t be looking at a glow. I’ll be watching how many lives I’ve cast a shadow over, in an effort to _make_ people better.” 

“That’s where you and he were different,” Margolotta said, without malice or rancour, “he showed them how, but he never forced them.” 

“Yes. _He_ was a good man.” 

“Remember him, Miss Nitt. I will leave you now.” 

“Good morning, your Ladyship.” As Margolotta reached the door Agnes called out, “leave the door open, I’m expecting- well, I suppose it doesn't matter really.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of a three-part series. Part 2 is in process and will be uploaded once finished and beta-ed.


End file.
